Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bobbyhanlon]

it might seem like a strange idea.. but have any of you lived in rural korea for the purpose of learning korean? i'd really like to improve my ability and thought that if i could, say, live with a family for a few months, speaking only korean, then it would be really helpful.
have any of you done this? i guess you could teach their kids english for an hour or two each day in return or something.

[jhuntingtonus]

[The Goalie]

I don't live in the sticks to learn Korean, but I do live in the sticks and live in a "pension" run by the parents of two of my students. They were really keen on involving me in their life, but I've done my best to keep them at a bit of a distance. They're really nice, though, so I try to strike a balance by playing with the kids once in a while (hide and seek or whatever). They even offered to pay for my airplane ticket home (vacation) if I brought their 11 year old kid with me. I politely declined.

Anyways, the moral of this story is that there are families willing to incorporate someone into their family and I'm sure you could turn such a situation into a good language learning experience. I'm functional in Korean and even with my somewhat standoffish approach I end up speaking Korean a lot just to get things done.